Artist Statement: I choose to explore pairing Freud’s ideas of psychoanalysis, specifically, his explanation of the ego as the building block of a modern artist’s creativity, to what a visual expression of that ego might look like today. What if, much like an X-Ray or MRI, one can replicate something intangible, undetectable, and in many cultures, still imagined. I decided to create an artificial ego, whereby I harvest the ego of other artists known for theirs. Usual suspects (such as Gauguin, Picasso, and Dali) all worked full throttle with a splash of adrenaline, adding a personal temperament to their choice of colors. What if, somehow, it was possible to erode that adrenaline, to neutralize emotions – would their genius still be evident?
Genna Gurvich was born in 1957 in Kiev, Ukraine. He studied art at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art & Design in St. Petersburg, Russia from 1980-1985.
He is the recipient of the 2007 “Prix de la Photographie Paris” (PX3) photography competition and has participated in the 2001 Baker Artist Awards and 2014 Gennart Studio opening with the Beer Supper Project.
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